Dozens who went to Winter Party on Beach have become ill
If Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales had known that the coronavirus pandemic would eventually come to his city, he likely would have canceled a week-long LGBTQ festival linked to several positive cases and two deaths.
“If I could do it over again, I’d probably cancel Winter Party,” Morales said April 2 during a city-sponsored webinar. “
On Saturday, the organizers of the Winter Party Festival — which brought thousands of gay men to South Beach for a series of close-quarters dance parties — told the Miami Herald that 38 attendees had become sick since partying at the festival and some of them had tested positive. Of those, many then left Miami and traveled back home to cities like Seattle and Boston.
The Miami Herald reported on March 20 that at least nine positive cases had been reported to the organizers at the LGBTQ Task Force, which hosts the annual Winter Party serves both as a celebration of gay pride and fundraiser. The parties, held in Miami Beach and Miami, took place from March 4-10. And there was very little social distancing; videos of the events show shirtless men gyrating and grinding on each other in poorly ventilated enclosures.
The New York Times first reported on the new cases Saturday.
The first reported coronavirus death in Miami-Dade County, that of 40-year-old Israel Carrera, came on March 27. Carrera had attended Winter Party, his husband told the Herald. The second death linked to Winter Party, that of volunteer Ron Rich, was announced on March 31.
At the time of the festival, state health officials had not reported a single positive COVID-19 case in Miami-Dade County and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had not yet recommended canceling large gatherings.
“We are following all current local, state and federal guidelines and best practices,” a Winter Party spokesman wrote in a text to a Miami Herald reporter on March 7. “We will continue to inform and encourage our attendees to carry out best practices and standards to minimize the possible transmission of COVID-19, through a harm reduction and wellness lens.”
During the welcome reception for the Winter Party Festival on March 4, a festival representative and Mayor Dan Gelber demonstrated a hands-free handshake — it involved jazz hands and a rump bump — that attendees should use.
Organizers put out fliers encouraging attendees to wash their hands and handed out 10,000 bottles of hand sanitizer.
“Don’t go back to the dance floor all nasty. Who wants to ruin their vibe by getting sick,” reads one flier for the festival. “Regular handwashing, particularly before and after certain activities (don’t make us list them here), is one of the best ways to remove germs, avoid getting sick and prevent the spread of germs to others.”
Miami Beach leaders stood behind the decision not to cancel. Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales declared the city “open for business.” When Ultra Music Festival made the controversial decision March 4 to cancel its concerts slated for later that month, Morales said the city would try to give Ultra fans “something to do.” Two days later, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez officially pulled the plug on the area’s biggest music festivals, Ultra and the Calle Ocho Festival, which were scheduled for March 20 and March 15, respectively.
As an international travel destination, the Miami area was vulnerable to an outbreak — especially at large gatherings, said City Commissioner Joe Carollo at the time.
But Winter White Party went on in Miami Beach, and federal health officials didn’t suggest otherwise. In a press conference on March 10 — on the last day of the Winter Party Festival — a top doctor from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not recommend canceling large gatherings across the board.
“It is really difficult to make those kind of pronouncements broadly,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “So the decisions, for example, in Seattle may look quite different than the decisions being made in a location right now where there is not community spread.”
Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Góngora, the city’s first openly gay commissioner, said some members of the LGBTQ community have criticized Winter Party organizers for not canceling the festival. Others have been more understanding, he said.
“Hindsight is 20-20,” he said. “At the time it seemed so ludicrous that there was talk of social distancing.”